Imagine if our world wasn't such a hard place to live in, if so many people didn't have to struggle for a living, if more children could live past five years of age, if the polar ice caps were not melting as rapidly as they are, if more people had access to two square meals a day and one glass of clean water to drink. Is that such an impossible dream? How much worse does the average human's life have to become before we sit up and say, let me put others before myself? Let me give a helping hand, and do what I can to change another human being's life for the better?
The concept of utopia is a far fetched and rather impossible one for most people, but to be honest we don't even need to get close to a utopia to improve the human condition by leaps and bounds. As the guys at theminimalists.com point out, many people have much more wealth, possessions and properties than they could possibly ever need in a lifetime. Saying that its your rainy day fund makes no sense in a stable economy like what many of the developed countries today enjoy, and in any case these rainy day funds are usually so bloated they could save an entire town if disaster struck. The mad chase of materialistic desires that many people today are involved in can only lead to further discontentment, for as the great Buddha once said, 'Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship'. So if we look to achieve these three things in our life, we can go closer to true happiness than ever before. Such an attitude would also enable us to help the poor and destitute, the orphaned and those whom fate has struck crippling blows. It is in helping others find happiness that our happiness lies, and this is the kind of joy that soothes the soul, and gives us contentment like no other.
The concept of utopia is a far fetched and rather impossible one for most people, but to be honest we don't even need to get close to a utopia to improve the human condition by leaps and bounds. As the guys at theminimalists.com point out, many people have much more wealth, possessions and properties than they could possibly ever need in a lifetime. Saying that its your rainy day fund makes no sense in a stable economy like what many of the developed countries today enjoy, and in any case these rainy day funds are usually so bloated they could save an entire town if disaster struck. The mad chase of materialistic desires that many people today are involved in can only lead to further discontentment, for as the great Buddha once said, 'Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship'. So if we look to achieve these three things in our life, we can go closer to true happiness than ever before. Such an attitude would also enable us to help the poor and destitute, the orphaned and those whom fate has struck crippling blows. It is in helping others find happiness that our happiness lies, and this is the kind of joy that soothes the soul, and gives us contentment like no other.
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